colder days there have been
by The People Speak
Summary: It's her name, and it's always been her name. But she knows, there was a magnet inside her that pulled her constantly, no matter how far or how high she ran, right back to him in the small town of parents and washouts and those too afraid to leave home. / leafgary / leafgreenshipping / slight ua / soulmate au / companion to 'Pieces of a Whole' and 'the world at our fingertips'


If there is something to be said about soulmates, it is that they are not always conventional. There seem to be certain patterns that people follow when they fall in love. Sometimes the soulmate marks lead people towards happiness, and sometimes they lead people away. It's a pretty exclusive thing: people either develop a mark or they don't, but no one ever gets more than one name. It's just the way the universe works.

* * *

The Greene's are an odd family. For one, the parents don't have each other's names written on their wrists. Mr. Greene has the name of his first university girlfriend, and Mrs. Greene has nobody at all. They are happy together, marks or not, and they are determined to raise their daughter in their mindset. So Mr. Greene hides his mark from his tiny daughter and wonders if she'll ever follow in his footsteps or if she'll discover her own path.

The daughter of two acclaimed scientists would naturally be very independent, and even as a toddler, they could see it in her. Leaf's hair is wispy and not very long, but she wears it down every day, refusing her mother's suggestions to try braids or a ponytail. She's only four years old, but already the Greene's can see that the world is not ready for their daughter. She's something else entirely.

Melissa and John Oak have been their friends for so long and their youngest son is only a couple months older than Leaf. Gary's a well-behaved kid, but he and Leaf do not get along. Even at four years old, when their words are a jumbled mess and they don't understand the world, they already dislike each other. Yet at the same time, they're the closest friends one could ever meet. But they're young and it doesn't occur to anyone that the path they're on is a dangerous one.

* * *

Leaf gets her first. It's four letters, but she is only five and can barely read. Still, she refrains from telling her parents. She knows she's different from them. She has seen her mother's wrists dozens of times: the skin is smooth and white and pale and blank. Her father is harder, but he has something. Leaf still decides that it's not worth it. In the end, she tells the boys first.

Along with being Gary's best friend, Ash Ketchum rounds out the Pallet trio. They're five years old and none of them understand the meaning of the rich, beautiful black script, but they all know that it means Leaf is a grown up now. Ash eventually brings a story his mother told about soulmates and being connected to the person whose name appears on your wrist. Gary jokes that he and Leaf are connected and she points out, in true schoolchild fashion, that she's the only one with the name.

Ironically, Gary gets his name overnight. Her four letters are etched on his skin the next time she sees him.

Still, they're children and they don't really understand.

* * *

When they turn eight, Leaf finally gets the talk. Her parents sit her down in the living room and her father rolls up his sleeve. He tells her that his soulmate was just a friend and that he loves her mother, even though they're not soulmates. Leaf listens, wide-eyed and surprised. Her parents tell her that receiving a soulmate can be a slow process. She's only eight, she shouldn't concern herself with talks of loving for life.

Leaf doesn't mention the name that she's lived with for three years. She doesn't breathe a word of how she spends night after night writing his name on her arm, running her small fingertips over the glaringly obvious lettering. She tries to tell herself that it is friendly; she would get Ash's name someday too. There was no connection that existed between her and Gary that did not exist between her and Ash.

Yet, there is.

Leaf understands Gary better than anyone else. Most days it seems like she can actually read his mind and him hers. But eight-year-old boys don't spend all day dreaming about soulmates; they're more concerned with Pokémon and the fact that in two years, they will be trainers. They spend day after day chatting each other up and battling with make believe Pokémon. Leaf watches and occasionally participates, but there's a spark of rivalry between Gary and Ash that doesn't exist between anyone else. It would be wrong, she thinks, to insert herself where she isn't wanted.

She's content to worry about other things. She studies the inevitability of soulmates and maps of regions and a dozen other things that most girls twice her age know not much about. Despite the claims of numerous sites and books, Leaf refuses to believe the sources that say there will only ever be one soulmate mark per person. She is adamant about the fact that her mark cannot be the only one she will ever get.

Her fixation soon becomes an obsession as she searches for loopholes. There are cases where soulmates don't fall in love, her father being an example, but the cry of connection between two people is often strong enough to draw them together in a romantic way. After all, the marks don't appear until after you connect with the other person. Leaf is sure of herself. Gary cannot be her soulmate because she does not love him. They are only eight, just children, they can't love yet.

As she learns, her heart has a funny way of always knowing what's right.

* * *

At nine, the world changes again. Her parents kiss her forehead and drop her off at the lab where Gary is waiting. They promise it is only a weekend. It's a trip they do every once and awhile with Melissa and John and it's no surprise that they're going again. So she kisses their cheeks and turns her wrist in and waves goodbye to them from the door.

But, the ending isn't what she expects at all. The world spins and the colour drains away and her vision blurs. The wreck on the television is smoking and there are words blurring in her ears. And Gary's hand is holding her arm in an iron grip and he too can't believe what he's seeing. Because they're just nine years old and anchored together by the names on their arms, but also by this tragedy that robbed four people of life too soon.

Leaf withdraws. She's taken in by her uncle and aunt who are rather reclusive anyways, but she pulls away. Ash and Gary are the only recipients of her conversation for months, but it's nothing special. She reads more and sleeps more and sinks into the shell of the fiery child she used to be. But there's a simmer every now and then, of competitive spirit in her. It comes out mostly around Ash as he doesn't really understand grief and Leaf's mostly grateful.

Gary handles it differently. He becomes even more extroverted and he and Ash become ever more bitter rivals, just waiting for the day when they can pound each other into the dust. Leaf starts to accept the fact that she and Gary are soulmates. Maybe it's a childish crush, but he's not as horrid as he used to be and she's grateful for his strength, faked or real, through the tough part of her life.

* * *

By the time Leaf is ten, Ash and Gary have been bouncing on the balls of their feet to leave for months. She is the youngest of the three, and they are three of Pallet's last. Without them, the town will contain the lab of a famous professor and the homes of parents whose children have long since left on their adventures. They're just kids; they don't understand what they're leaving behind. All they can see are the legacies that await them.

And Leaf is the first one to the lab. Her route is planned and her bag is packed and her mind is set. She knows exactly how this will go down. She knows her choice and Gary's and Ash's. It works out perfectly in their favour. Gary is second and they're forced to wait, anticipation rooted deep inside, for the third to arrive. And when the doors of the lab creak open again, Leaf is prepared to give Ash a piece of her mind for being late, but she freezes.

It isn't Ash. It's a boy who travelled all the way from Viridian. So since he's late, Leaf realises, Ash will get nothing. Even as Bulbasaur's Pokéball is pressed into her hand, she looks at Gary. His lips are pressed together, but Leaf can feel the contempt rolling off him in waves. As much as he claims to hate Ash, they are a trio and Ash was supposed to get Charmander. The Viridian boy seems to sense the awkwardness as he leaves soon after.

Gary resigns to waiting around for Ash, deciding to rub it in his face. Leaf studies Gary. He's still the boy she grew up with, but they've both grown since the marks appeared. She is startled by a realisation, she's now lived half her life with her mark, a feat that's nearly unheard of at her age. It's kind of a scary thought. But still, withdrawn as she is, she's Leaf Greene and her parents were right when they thought the world wasn't ready. She's got a fire that is unmatched.

Leaf leaves. She brushes past Gary and tells him she'll write. In her mind, they'll be meeting up on the road eventually.

* * *

She trains. She bonds with Bulbasaur and she ignores the other important bond in her life. She expands her team and challenges her first gym. The Rock type Pokémon are no match for her Bulbasaur and she sweeps through it cleanly. The Boulder Badge is pinned inside her jacket and she keeps it polished.

Mount Moon is an interesting challenge. The mountain intrigues her and it seems to call her name, but Leaf pushes on towards Cerulean. She's ahead of Ash and Gary. That much she is sure of. She wonders idly what Ash received for a starter and if Gary thinks of her as often as she thinks of him. It's hard not to when the end of the 'y' peeks out from under any glove she tries on.

The Cerulean Gym is boring. The badge is a free gift and Leaf moves on, unimpressed. She's ten. Winning badges is supposed to be hard.

The gyms fall in order. She topples them neatly and quickly. Her team is strong and well thought out.

Brief correspondence with Gary reveals he's beaten one less gym than her, and Ash is further behind him. Leaf is heading for her eighth badge when she finally runs into Ash. It's less of a run in than a sighting in a crowd.

* * *

Saffron City is crowded and she's not sure it's him until she spies the hat. It's the hat that she and Gary tried so hard to win for him, but he ended up winning for himself. It's bobbing along at Ash's speed and Leaf finds herself wondering if Gary's tagging along. So she follows, keeping an eye on the League Cap at all times.

As she soon finds out, disappointingly, Ash does not travel with Gary. However, Leaf recognises the Pewter City Gym Leader and there's a redhead tagging along too. Her wrist aches and she rubs over it idly. It's been awhile since she's seen Gary or spoken to Ash. She has half a mind to approach him and catch up with him and call Gary then and there, but then the redhead grabs his wrist and tugs him along and Leaf realises: Ash has his own new trio.

She feels a weight in her chest.

Leaf knows that even if Ash has replaced her, Gary will not have. That evening, Ivysaur seems to recognise her stress as he stays out with her longer than normal, giving her a hard look when she attempts to return him. She camps outside of Saffron for two reasons: she's never been a fan of staying at PokéCentres and she really doesn't want to run into Ash.

As she's staring into her small fire, Ivysaur at one side and Vaporeon at the other, she makes a decision. The seven Kanto badges she has collected glimmer in the firelight, but they don't make her as proud or satisfied as they did before. Gary and Ash always spoke about becoming trainers and challenging leagues and becoming champions. They had preached it was how one became strong, but Leaf sees it differently. She believes there are other ways to become a good trainer.

So when the sun comes up the next day, she breaks camp and heads into the city. She heads for the Magnet Train. Ticket in hand, she stands on the platform. She's turned eleven two weeks ago and people give her strange looks. She's an eleven-year-old waiting for a train alone. She's an eleven-year-old with a grip on the world common to that of an adult.

She boards the train quietly and takes a seat near the rear of the car. A young couple sits down in front of her and in the gap between their seats, she can just spy their joined hands. An inked name is barely visible on the girl's arm, and when her boyfriend stretches his right arm up to relieve a tight shoulder, Leaf spies his mark too. She looks down at her gloves. The last curve of the 'y' is visible.

Leaf is thankful that his name is not very long. If she had to see more of it, she might be sick.

* * *

In the beginning, Johto satisfies her. There are new Pokémon and new places and new people. She spends some time just travelling and experiencing new things. When she has a chance, she challenges the gyms. To her dismay, they topple as easily as Kanto's did. Even those hailed as unbeatable, fall to her well-oiled team. By her second month, she's begun avoiding the gyms again.

As it happens, she staying in a PokéCentre on Cianwood when the Indigo League begins. It takes her a while of channel surfing to find a station with Kanto coverage of the event; all the Johto stations are covering the upcoming Silver Conference. The roar of the stadium at the Plateau sounds tinny through the small cable set she's observing it on.

The familiar voices of commentators she's been listening to since she was just a small girl blare through the speakers and she listens and watches, rapt. The helicopter shot on screen covers the whole stadium, the pitch filled with all the different competitors. She could have been there, she thinks, but it isn't her place. She's not a fan of big crowds and loud places and winner-take-all glory.

Even on the tiny screen, she looks for them. They're there, she knows it. They were close when she left and it has been months since then. She wonders if they noticed. If they'll notice when she doesn't appear at the League. Maybe they will and maybe they'll be glad since it means they don't have to battle her. But, she remarks to herself, twelve years old is awfully young for a trainer to be feared. There are others they should be scared of.

Yet her fingers slide under her glove and she writes his name in ink that doesn't exist. She misses him a lot. She's still just a child, she reasons. Yet, there's something in her gut that reminds her the soulmate marks are never wrong. Her father, her head reminds, his was wrong. But, look where that got him, her heart disagrees. Leaf flicks off the channel displaying the Indigo League.

The station she changes to is showing preparatory coverage for the Silver Conference: the Johto League. Most of the footage jumps around and is ground footage. She realises that it is because Mount Silver is so high up that it's often dangerous for helicopters. The view they show in one shot, of Kanto sprawling in the east and Johto stretching in the west, is breathtaking. Leaf's adventurous and has always had a soft spot for beautiful views. Mount Silver is mentally added to her list of places to see.

* * *

Some days Leaf feels the world is being particularly cruel. There are glimpses of families with young girls walking hand in hand, and she feels the ache in her chest. She was nine when her world caved in and at twelve, it hasn't changed much. The real difference is when she was lonely then, she had Gary. Now, she's alone.

Leaf keeps moving, keeps wandering.

For a while, she flips between exploring far off places in both Johto and Kanto, relishing in her discoveries of small, unknown beauties. She marks down the prettiest or most intriguing spots on her map and vows to revisit them later. She gives them nicknames, most commonly jokes from her childhood, and notes which ones that Ash or Gary would have liked. Exploring is nice; it's an escape where she doesn't have to think about the mark tattooed on her skin.

She spends two years searching—for what, she's still not sure, but eventually she has explored every crevice and every bump between the two regions without hardly a glimpse of a familiar face. Still, there's a knot in her stomach. Leaf still doesn't know where she's headed as her feet lead her to the harbour, but at fourteen, she buys a ticket to Sinnoh. It's time to step outside her comfort zone.

* * *

When her feet touch the concrete of Sunnyshore City's dock, there are snowflakes drifting in the air. February in Sinnoh is still very much winter, and the chill bites at her nose. She tugs her coat around her tighter and adjusts the straps of her backpack. As much as she doesn't want to, she heads towards the core of the city to find the PokéCentre. She did only a little research on Sinnoh before her arrival, so she wants to study a map.

When she arrives, it's as if the world is really trying to spite her, as the monitors in the centre are showing the Johto Silver Conference. It's the Top 16 battles and the Pokémon that the camera is focused on, makes her freeze. It's a Blastoise, but it's not just any Blastoise. The water type has an imperfection, a tiny scar, on the right side of its jaw, that Leaf is only able to pick out because she recognises it.

Furthermore, she recognises the silhouette of the trainer just beyond the starter. It's a boy she knows well, if her wrist is any indication, too well. She stands, frozen in front of the TV, watching as the camera pans across the pitch, highlighting two people she's seen many times in passing, before falling on Gary's opponent. There's a determination set dead in Ash's eyes and the camera cuts back to the other trainer and Leaf watches the fire of rivalry burn between the two Pallet trainers.

Again, she is struck by the fact that there is something between the boys that never existed between her and them. She and Gary may be soulmates, but the rivalry between Ash and Gary is something else entirely, and Leaf is sure that they were bonded by Arceus himself. It's the only explanation why two people, who are so similar, can fight and compete with such fire. She's felt the heat of the rivalry first hand.

Leaf watches most of the battle. When Ash sends out his Charizard, her spine chills. Gary has the advantage in numbers, but even through the cheap PokéCentre TV, Leaf can tell Charizard is more powerful than anything in Gary's arsenal except his Blastoise. True to her prediction, as the battle wears on, Charizard sweeps through the remainder of Gary's team until it is just fire against water. Leaf watches—this is the battle that was always going to happen.

When Ash commands a Seismic Toss, Leaf knows it is over. After this, someone will have won, and someone will have lost. She's ready for either, but somehow she knows that this is not Gary's day. She assumes it's the mark leading her to this conclusion, but it could also be because she recognises the crease in Gary's brow. He's unsure, and that usually means defeat in his case. She turns away before the flags are raised, but she knows she is correct.

For the seconds and minutes and hours that pass after, she's not sure what changes, but something does. It's the realisation that this is her life and she's living under a big, grey, cloud. And maybe she doesn't want it to be, but it's not like she can just go home. After all, it's been made blatantly clear to her that both Gary and Ash have moved on and neither seem to be looking for her like she looks for them.

Leaf rubs her wrist and looks down at the mark. It's faded, but she knows now that it'll never go away. Soulmates are an odd concept, but as she's grown up, she doesn't regret it at all. It's a bond and it's something that at least can anchor her to her childhood, even if she spends every day now running away from that very thing. She retreats from the lobby, pulling a map out, and burying her nose in it until the images burned in her mind from the battle start to fade.

* * *

She's fifteen when she finally wanders upon Mount Coronet. Originally, she had wanted to head straight to the mountain and disappear into it's winding caverns, but she had resisted and headed for the cities and the islands and the forests instead. The forests often did a good job of letting her get lost and letting her lose herself in their exploration. Eterna Forest especially, was a treat as there was history involved and Leaf finally got to channel her inner scientist again.

But still, the forests have nothing on the winding and confusing caverns of mountains. And while Mount Moon has called to her, Mount Coronet has grabbed her hand and dragged her in. And she stays. She discovers little nooks and untraveled passages and gets up high enough that the air is thin enough and the view is nice enough that she has trouble breathing. There is just something about the isolation of being up high that spoke to Leaf. Freedom, she figures, is something you can taste that high up.

She trains. She gets stronger and she connects. Slowly, her connection with her Pokémon reaches the point where words are not needed. There are feelings and emotions that can pass between her and her partners without words. Any trainers she comes across challenge her, and they fall. They fall like dominos and they have to admire and respect her after because she's fifteen, but she battles with the finesse of a master.

And soon enough, she's excavated every dark turn and she's run out of trainers to battle because they're starting to get predictable. Sinnoh itself is getting predictable. So two weeks before she turns sixteen, Leaf stares down at the sprawling view of Sinnoh from Spear Pillar, and at the mark she's carried for ten years, and she decides that it's time to go home. She wonders, in the back of her mind, if anyone will still be waiting for her.

* * *

Three days after her sixteenth birthday, she's bidding farewell to the snowy landscape of Sinnoh and the looming mountain of Coronet and headed for more familiar towns. And as the tallest peaks in Napaj disappear, the great shadow of the familiar mountain she grew up seeing appears along the horizon. She can't force down the smile that curls up the edges of her lips. She's finally, _finally_ , home.

Leaf doesn't go back to Pallet Town. She arrives in Olivine, so she stays for a bit. Jasmine stumbles across her and they rematch, but though the Gym Leader has gotten stronger, she loses faster and can only gape blankly at Leaf. Venusaur returns to her side and for once, Leaf feels that being as strong as she is, isn't exactly worth it. She contemplates starting anew, but when she looks up at the skyline, there's a figure there that prevents her from doing so.

But, she can't go yet. There are places she needs to go again before she can. And maybe, she thinks, there are people too. Her fingers ghost against the skin in a familiar pattern and she watches as even being that much closer to the memories they made, makes the skin darken and even though his geographical location is a blank to her, there's an internal compass within her spinning wildly and she's slowly, slowly, spinning in his direction.

Even if she doesn't find him soon, they'll get there eventually and right now, she's okay with that. And it's that thought that gets her trekking across Johto again, revisiting all her marked locations.

* * *

At sixteen, she wanders into Blackthorne and catches her first glimpse of Lance. He's the champion of Indigo, she knows that, and she halts in her tracks when she recognises him. She stands still, paralysed, as Clair sees her and brushes past the Champion to walk towards her. Leaf can't leave now because there's a challenge glinting in Clair's eyes, and Leaf is never one to back down from a challenge.

Per Lance's suggestion, they take it into Dragon's Den. As they prepare to battle, Leaf draws on her reserves of knowledge from the last confrontation. She also recalls Gary's interview after the Silver Conference in which he spoke of how he narrowly defeated Clair for his eighth badge. She has a well of information at her disposal, and as the battle begins, Leaf already knows what the outcome will be.

Clair nearly throws a tantrum, but Lance halts her with a hand. He requests a battle, informal, and she reluctantly accepts. She's battling a Champion. And for the first time, she comes alive. The fire that's been simmering inside her since childhood burns like an inferno, even after the suppression that came with years of lonely adventuring and exploring, but now she's blazing. She tears through several of the Champion's Pokémon, and he tears through several of hers, but her Vaporeon is just a little too good at taking hits and dealing, and in the end, it's the Champion who falls.

There's a heavy silence over the cavern and Leaf can hear her own breaths, tense from excitement, echo off the walls. She's sixteen and has never competed in the Pokémon League, but she's just defeated the trainer widely regarded as the toughest in the world. She's sixteen. And by the expressions that Lance and Clair bear, Leaf knows they weren't expecting it either. But, there are formalities that accompany a battle against a Champion, even an informal one, and those are scenarios that she is not ready to face. Being the Master was never her dream—that wish belonged to Ash and Gary.

* * *

She flees. And finally, she heeds to her calling. Her coat from Mount Coronet becomes her best friend as it's late November when she begins her climb. While not as tall as the Sinnoh peaks were, she is taken aback at the wild Pokémon. The strength she faces is incredible and there are times when she actively avoids fights, something she has never done before. The winds are harsh and it snows all the time so she often takes refuge inside caves with only her Pokémon as company.

In the beginning, she spends more time at the base and restocking in supplies in Viridian than she does on the mountain itself, but she begins to learn shortcuts and secrets that allow her to climb faster. As she climbs faster, she gets father in her allotted time and she starts to spend less time in Viridian. It's still too cold to spend long on the mountain, despite how many layer she wears, so she retreats to the empty PokéCenter at the base and she waits for the times where she can climb again.

It takes her a long time of navigating spiralling hallways and dead ends and tough wild encounters as well as the very rare trainer before she reaches the top. Once she gets there, she nearly gives up everything. It's a clear day and her breath is stolen from her chest. The view is astounding. She can see the far reaches of both Johto and Kanto at an angle she'd never seen before. It's a three-hundred-sixty-degree view and it's completely unobstructed.

Leaf stumbles to the edge of a cliff and sits on the edge, ignoring the snow. It's late August. It took nearly a year, but she made it. She's at the top and there's a part of her brain which tells her to never go down because up there, in the thin air and the freezing cold summer, and with the deceptively clear skies, it's everything she's dreamed it would be. She doesn't fear being found because no one is crazy enough to come after her.

As she, seventeen now, looks around at the place she worked so hard to reach, she runs her fingers over her soulmate mark and wants nothing more than to go home, but also to never move her feet from that spot.

She descends and restocks and speaks to a few locals. Without them, Leaf would not have spoken hardly a word in nine months. They chatter innocently to her and she smiles. They're not burdened like she is, but as she looks up, she recalls the free feeling of being atop Mount Silver. It's not something that someone like Leaf, a girl with a thirst for adventure, can stay away from.

Her aunt and uncle get the occasional phone call, and she even places one to Daisy. Pallet is the same, and she wasn't expecting different, but there's something she hadn't expected. Ash is still out travelling, off in Unova or Kalos now, and Gary has come home. She nearly drops everything to run to him, she feels the yearning in her chest, but it's been seven years and she doesn't know if he still cares for her. They're marked, but they were just children.

So in the end, she climbs again, but her pockets are carrying a little less money and her Pidgeot is not in her ensemble as it delivers the Mount Silver postcard and her letter of explanation. She hopes it's enough to make him remember, but keep him where he is because he belongs in that town surrounded by people and she belongs on the mountain where she has the air she needs to think.

* * *

As another year passes, Leaf loses herself. The mountain becomes a home and her trips away from it grow shorter and shorter and her challengers grow fewer and fewer. Though many people have spread the word of an incredibly strong trainer who resides on Mount Silver, very few can make it to her, much less be in a state to battle her when they do. Still, they respect her and she respects that. She is the Guardian of the Mountain, and she embraces her title because the mountain is the one place where she can think.

But still, there are days when she finds herself staring down at her home region and wishing desperately for companionship. She wishes for her parents and for her friends and her youth back. Arcanine stays with her during these times so she can stay warm, but the companionship she has isn't what she craves and it takes so much internal debate not to descend the mountain and run to him.

Because they've been apart for a long time and their letters and communications are few and far in between. Leaf knows that it's her fault. They fell out of contact because she ran. She ran to find new corners of the world that nobody else could find and she looked for challenges. She knows that because everything fell so simply to her, she looked for real battles. And the only real battle she's ever fought, besides against Lance, is against herself because she still loves him and she's still not even sure if he's matured past the ten-year-old she knew him as.

He will always be Gary, there's no denying that. They're soulmates and there's no point in arguing against that fact. Atop her mountain, Leaf faces this and she accepts it. Friendship in their youth developed into a bond that was so indestructible that it bonded them for life. It wasn't a Gary-Ash rivalry, although it was just as deeply rooted and felt. And as she isolates herself, she doesn't miss the companionship of random strangers, but she reminisces about their childhood far more often.

* * *

When winter hits, she comes down because it's far too cold to stay up on the mountain, but she doesn't go far. At eighteen, she finally cracks and heads for Pallet Town. It has been too long. Yet, when she arrives, there is a girl leaving Gary's house. They don't look particularly intimate, but the part that scares Leaf is that she recognises the girl—it's the redhead who travelled with Ash.

She doesn't speak with Gary. She visits her aunt and uncle and returns to Mount Silver without uttering a word to her soulmate despite the longing that rips through her stomach.

* * *

In the end, it's the one who chased her up who brings her down. Two years after their battle, Lance scales her mountain. They battle again and this time, they draw. Lance tells her she could be anything that she wanted, but Leaf just tells him she's happy on the mountain. Lance studies her silently. Thanks to her self-taught medical knowledge, their Pokémon are fully healed, but he doesn't leave.

"You have a soulmate," he observes when her sleeve rolls up a little.

Leaf tugs it down self-consciously. She mentally excused her behaviour as a reaction to the weather. Despite the season and the current weather, it was still chilly. "I do," she agrees softly.

"How long have you been running?" he asks. Leaf peers at him curiously and Lance looks down at the regions before them. "You're just like me. You enjoy privacy and you value freedom, but you also desire companionship." Leaf catches a brief glimpse of Lance's arm. His mark is so pale it nearly disappears when his arm moves. Lance turns and catches her eye. "Don't let what happened to me, happen to you," he warns.

With those words imparted, the Dragon Master leaves her alone atop the mountain again.

It takes only three days after he leaves for her to make up her mind. Her bag, full of everything she owns, is slung across her shoulder and she looks out at her mountaintop. It's familiar now, but she's achieved her peace of mind and she's explored every inch of it. It's time for her to explore a new angle.

Her name is grey now and faded, but she watches it darken as she descends. Near the entrance to the waterfall caves, the main way into the mountain, Leaf runs into someone else. The girl is lost, but not physically so. It's a mental thing that Leaf had seen in herself for so many years. May is wonderful and sweet and Leaf wishes her luck in finding balance and takes her sentiments about finding Gary and holds them close to her chest. She's going to find him.

* * *

Leaf is nineteen when her knuckles rap against the familiar wood of the lab's side door. She hears grumbling behind it and wonders if it will even open. Fortunately, it opens inward and she's left on his doorstep as he leans against the door frame and tries to digest the scene before him. Leaf thinks for a moment that she'll have to reintroduce herself to him.

"Leaf?" he breathes.

She exhales in relief and lets the edges of her lips curl up the tiniest bit. While he's taking her in, she takes a moment to do the same. He's taller now, much taller, and he's filled in his form nicely. His hair is still spiked like a hedgehog and his eyes are the same icy blue she remembers so vividly. She wants to touch him, her wrist is burning wildly. She needs to touch him.

He takes her in, long brown hair, green eyes, simple clothes, worn winter jacket. She's not ten anymore. She's changed, and some of it's for the better. She's well travelled and she's been to the farthest reaches of her childhood imagination. But, she's been away from people for so long, and the way she shies back from the door is a tell to that, and he steps after her.

His bare feet land on the freezing cement and Leaf pauses. It's cold and she's used to it, but he's been surrounded by people forever and she's been surrounded by ice and breathtaking views. She doesn't move from her spot and Gary steps toward her again. His brow is knit and his hand reaches for hers. Leaf doesn't move as his fingers curl around hers.

"I missed you," he murmurs, his voice low.

She pulls away abruptly. "No, you don't get to do that," she snaps. "You don't get to pretend like everything is okay!" Leaf's shoulders are shaking. It's been almost nine years, but she loves him still. "I left you for years! You're supposed to hate me!"

He exhales slowly. She can't take her eyes off of him. "I can't," he replies finally.

She looks away. "Soulmate marks shouldn't dictate that. They can be wrong," she says bitterly.

He touches her hand again and she tenses. "It's not the mark, this is me. Not even nine years would change that."

She stares. She knows she still loves him, but it's almost completely impossible he still feels the same way. Leaf shakes her head and tries to move back again, but he steps with her, moving further from the open door of the lab. A shiver runs up his spine and Leaf feels bad. He's chasing her outside in the middle of the night in the middle of winter.

"Can we talk inside?" he asks. Leaf frowns, but Gary meets her eyes. "It's cold, Leaf, please?"

"I'm not cold," she argues. "I spent the last three years living on a mountain, I've been through colder days."

"I'm not saying you haven't," he placates. "But, Leaf, please," he urges.

Finally giving in, she lets him pull her inside of the lab and close the door behind them. They stand in the entrance way unmoving, just observing. Leafs hands curl into the bottom of her t-shirt and she plants her feet into the ground. She wants to be yelled at, she wants to feel his wrath, she wants to be floored by the emotion that he missed her. Once again, instead of yelling, he just steps in close and pulls her to his chest. Leaf tenses, but doesn't pull away. Slowly she recuperates, and as her fingers splay across his back and she realises he's trembling.

"I thought," he begins shakily, "that you had left me and I thought I'd lost you. When I was younger, I was naïve—I couldn't see how much I relied on you—and by the time you were gone, it was too late. And the postcards told me you were okay, your aunt and uncle assured me of the same, but I couldn't believe them. Even though I've been here, surrounded by people, I've felt like I was the one who stole away to a mountain top and never returned."

Regret washes over Leaf like she has been dunked in a river. She presses her nose into his collarbone. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

Gary's face presses into her hair and they sway gently back and forth, together. "I know," he murmurs. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't."

"I ran away from everything," she hisses painfully. "I just left everyone behind and I didn't think about leaving my aunt and uncle, leaving you, leaving Ash, leaving this place."

"But, you've seen things I'd give anything to see," he points out. He pulls out of the hug and grips her arms. "You lived, Leaf, and that should be enough. You experienced life and that's what matters."

"And now I'm here," she says. "Because I've been all over Kanto and Johto and Sinnoh and I found little nooks and crannies and things worth sharing and I lived _on top of a fucking mountain_ for three years. And, I'm here."

His eyes are fixed on hers. Neither looks away. They breathe. They blink. They stem the flow of thoughts in their minds.

"I'm sorry," he says finally. "I'm sorry you ran away and I didn't come after you and I didn't even try."

Leaf finally reaches up to touch his face. "Don't apologise. It was my mistake, and now I'm trying to fix this."

He laughs softly. "There's nothing to fix."

"And I'm grateful for that, but there should be. Normal people would be upset, so why are you not?"

"Look down," he instructs. She glances down between them.

His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. His skin is smooth and similar enough to the shade of her own and there's a sprawling ink mark just above his hand. She recognises the script, she's seen it enough times before. It's the same font she has, it's the same font her father had, and it's the same one she glimpsed momentarily on the inside of Lance's wrist.

It's her name, and it's always been her name. It's not a huge surprise or reveal. Fourteen years of knowing and fourteen years of never really understanding. But she knows, there was a magnet inside her that pulled her constantly, no matter how far or how high she ran, right back to him in the small town of parents and washouts and those too afraid to leave home. But even Leaf, with her nine years spent outside of it, still calls it home.

And she raises her hand to the same plane as his and lets him read the name he's known about since it appeared. And she holds back tears because she knows that she loves him and he still loves her and with all the years they've spent apart, she doesn't deserve it.

He smiles at her and his eyes are a little glassy too. Memories of the marks come with memories of youth and family that is no longer around and the burning heat of rivalry between their trio, which has since dwindled to two. Leaf takes solace in the fact that she went far, but never as far as Ash. Still, she misses the other piece, but right now she's content with just Gary. Because it's always been them with the invisible bond drawn by higher powers even if Ash drew his own bonds between them all.

Gary leans down and rests his forehead against hers. Leaf's eyes flutter shut and she breathes. Gary is silent and she can hear his breathing too and her heart is pounding in her chest. She matches the rhythm of their breathing, and when her fingers brush his chest over his heart, their hearts are already beating in time.

"Don't leave," Gary begs suddenly. "You can't leave again."

Leaf opens her eyes and peers at him through her lashes. "I'm not going anywhere," she decides.

She's seen a lot of the world. She thinks that she can wait a little longer before she sees the rest of it. And maybe, it won't be quite so lonely or cold, if she doesn't go alone for once. Because a beauty seen, is twice as beautiful if shared.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** More Soulmate AUs! Because I loved the trope I created with the first two pieces in this universe, 'Pieces of a Whole' and 'the world at our fingertips', I continued. For more of stories like this, definitely check out the other stories. They don't have to be read in order at all, but I'd recommend reading them all anyways.

Thanks for reading.

\- Nicole


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